{"id":1465,"date":"2008-06-05T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-12T13:46:33","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T13:46:33","slug":"open-mind-all-ears-mr-mod-reconsiders-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/open-mind-all-ears-mr-mod-reconsiders-th\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Mind, All Ears: Mr. Mod Reconsiders The Germs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/namethatcaliforniamini.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"75\" height=\"113\" \/><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2xKcpzb_9lg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe other day, when <strong>Townsman Sammymaudlin<\/strong> took it upon himself to drop a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/05\/31\/bullshit-on-the-germs\">huge electronic dump on <strong>The Germs<\/strong><\/a>, I gladly dropped my drawers and added to the dung heap. It turns out I was not alone in having my issues with that band and with hardcore in general. Others were mystified by the negative reactions, telling us we &#8220;had to be there&#8221; to appreciate these bands, that neither sounded good on record nor, for that matter, in concert. Townspeople candidly shared stories, displayed scars, and acknowledged their own shortcomings. <em>I&#8217;m OK, You&#8217;re OK<\/em>, was the prevailing sentiment. It was a moving day, yet one Townsperson was not satisfied. SoCal transplant <strong>Mwall<\/strong> still needed an explanation as to why some of us felt The Germs sucked. He was not satisfied by the resulting inability of Germs sympathizers to explain why they were good. It&#8217;s as if he thought we were obligated to adhere to American values like <em>Innocent until proven guilty<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>To his credit, Mwall did not back down. He kept at us, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/05\/31\/bullshit-on-the-germs#c16673\">finally recommending particular songs that we should hear<\/a> &#8211; without prejudice. And so I acquired the songs he recommended; cleared my mind of all memories of hardcore dudes scoffing at my own band&#8217;s particular brand of &#8220;pussy&#8221; music; and cleared my mind further of those same dudes, a few years earlier, before they gave up on their aspirations of being the next <strong>Tony Iommi<\/strong> and took up hardcore instead, <em>even then<\/em> scoffing at my friends and I for being such pussies. Let&#8217;s just say I was very clear and open-minded before revisiting The Germs. I&#8217;m, like, totally Pacific as I revisit these Germs songs I dismissed on one listen nearly 27 years ago. Following are my thoughts and the songs, for you to play and revisit alongside me.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<div><object type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" data=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/CAsting.swf\" width=\"75\" height=\"113\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/CAsting.swf\" \/><\/object><\/div>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/germs_main.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"281\" height=\"412\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/germsmp3\/lexicon.mp3\">&#8220;Lexicon Devil&#8221;<\/a>:<\/strong> As <strong>Sammymaudlin<\/strong> said, this closely follows the model of punk rock as set by <strong>The Ramones<\/strong>. When this song was recorded there were a fair share of local garage bands cranking out their own super lo-fi version of this Ramones template. This is totally fine in a humble, well-intentioned, local punk band way, circa 1983 (yeah, I know the recording is from a few years earlier, but it doesn&#8217;t make them visionaries) &#8211; if you&#8217;re, like, totally open to punk rock. If not, you&#8217;d be looking for the nearest locker down on which to hang a band member by a wedgie. The fact that the lead singer would be a poster boy for a lot of hot-button psychological issues is not of consequence. He sings like a young punk with as mediocre and inconsequential a life as any of us.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/germsmp3\/richie.mp3\">&#8220;Richie Dagger&#8217;s Crime&#8221;<\/a>:<\/strong> Good opening guitar riff that&#8217;s reminiscent of something the <strong>New York Dolls<\/strong> might have used to kick off a song. The song itself is soon spoiled by bad drumming and lame production, but there is enough there that either a producer or in-band visionary could have shaped this into a satisfying side 2 <em>deep cut<\/em> on a <strong>Stiff Little Fingers<\/strong> or <strong>Richard Hell and the Voidoids<\/strong> album. <em>Much<\/em> better than expected.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/germsmp3\/communist.mp3\">&#8220;Communist Eyes&#8221;<\/a>:<\/strong> Oh man, here&#8217;s that too-fast-for-the-drummer&#8217;s-own-good hardcore drumming style that&#8217;s an immediate deal breaker for me. This is terrible. Any half-decent idea the guitarist might have is overrun by a drummer and singer who has no clue where to find the potential groove of the song. The inability that so many hardcore drummers and singers had to find the core groove of a song was always a turn off for me. Anyhow, in this &#8220;Communist Eyes&#8221; song, whether <strong>Darby Crash<\/strong> is shouting lyrics on par with the poetry of <strong>T.S. Elliott<\/strong> or not, I want to hear the singer sound as if he&#8217;s able to hear the band in his headphones. Crash sings as if he&#8217;s guessing at where the downbeats land. Was this one of <strong>Eno<\/strong>&#8216;s Oblique Strategies? With that drummer perhaps Crash didn&#8217;t have a choice. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/germsmp3\/secret.mp3\">&#8220;What We Do Is Secret&#8221;<\/a>:<\/strong> Half-step guitar riffs, chanted gang choruses, over before it had a chance to sink in. The brevity of this song is its strong point. As this achetypal hardcore song structure goes, the execution&#8217;s not bad. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/rocktownhall.com\/germsmp3\/bleed.mp3\">&#8220;We Must Bleed&#8221;<\/a>:<\/strong> More chromatic chord progressions, a blur of cymbals, a bunch of shouting. This is the kind of stuff that made the likes of myself and <strong>General Slocum<\/strong> wonder what it was really all about while we waited out these bands at the back of a club so one of our bands could take the stage. That descending chord part doesn&#8217;t represent anger and rage to me in any productive, satisfying way. It&#8217;s the musical equivalent of a spoiled brat whining.<\/p>\n<p>You know, I read the lyrics to these songs because I couldn&#8217;t make out many words listening to them. The lyrics read much better than they sound. There&#8217;s a serious Stooges <em>Raw Power<\/em> vibe running through the lyrics. Although <em>Raw Power<\/em> is the one Stooges album I don&#8217;t love, the lyrics on that album are often strong. What I don&#8217;t like about <em>Raw Power<\/em> is <strong>James Williamson<\/strong>&#8216;s guitar playing, which races through songs with no regard to the backbeat. His playing causes the usually rock-steady Iggy to lose track of the groove as well. <strong>Bowie<\/strong>&#8216;s lousy production, in which Iggy&#8217;s voice doesn&#8217;t have a natural spot within the music, is another turn off. <\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that Darby Crash guy wanted to be Iggy Pop, but he seems to have aspired to all the characteristics of Iggy Pop that I find least appealing, the Iggy who&#8217;d lost his focus, the Iggy who was more concerned with apocalyptic rants than simply kicking ass, the Iggy who was one of the Stooges not set apart from them by an ampersand. Along with misplaced aspirations, in my opinion, Crash and his bandmates display little musical talent and no musical vision. Only guitarist <strong>Pat Smear<\/strong> sounds like he was developing his own style on his instrument. The drummer and Crash sound like they don&#8217;t have a clue of what their role is musically, other than to be &#8220;punk.&#8221; If there&#8217;s a bass guitar on these songs it made absolutely no impression on me, and I don&#8217;t mean to suggest that the bassist is tastefully understated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, when Townsman Sammymaudlin took it upon himself to drop a huge electronic dump on The Germs, I gladly dropped my drawers and added to the dung heap. It turns out I was not alone in having my issues with that band and with hardcore in general. Others were mystified by the negative <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/open-mind-all-ears-mr-mod-reconsiders-th\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[87,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}